A three-year-effort to open a grocery co-op market in Deerfield has ended.

Earlier this month, the Deerfield Grocery Co-op completed a market study that, it hoped, would show that a full-service, 4,000-to-5,00-square-foot neighborhood grocery market was possible in or near downtown.

Virtual Management Solutions, of Madison, which conducted the study, found, instead, that this vision is not possible in Deerfield due to a variety of factors which include the community’s small population and the number of existing, competing grocery markets in Cambridge, Cottage Grove, Lake Mills, Sun Prairie, and east Madison.

We thank you for your continued support in this endeavor and hope that some day the doors to a local grocery store will open. The process to dissolve DGC has begun and the process of returning owner funds (as promised) will commence in early August.